I’m too much of a chameleon. It’s a theme you find in this
blog all the time (in fact, it’s in the description). I mention this because
Duke Gregor brought it up at Nutley Practice Wednesday night. He said he reads
my blog and he sees me writing about this style and that style, identifying
them with the people I learned them from, and he asked “when am I going to hear
about Val’s style?” I need, in his words, to fight my own fight. It’s a fair
criticism. He also said that he is amazed that I can analyze a fight I had in
Crown and know exactly what happened. He says he never really knows exactly
what he just did, especially in the fights that he wins. He just does it. The
implication is that I am thinking too much about what I am doing.
I know what he is talking about. Every fighter seeks to find
that place where he is fighting without thought, where he or she is reacting
without thinking, where muscle memory and reaction just take over and the lower
brain functions are in control. I call this “fighting from within the void”
borrowing terminology from translations of Musashi—mostly because it’s cool and
makes me sound totally Zen when I say it. But it is true—the best fights I’ve
had and the best days I’ve had have always been when I was fighting without thinking.
I can still often say what I did, but it was like I had observed myself doing
it, not like I had told myself to do it—if that makes any sense. I certainly
felt that way in a few of my fights in the Queen’s Champions tourney this
summer. I felt it in one or two fights Wednesday night at Nutley too.
But Greggo’s larger point was that I don’t have my own
style, at least I don’t write about my own style in this blog. The truth is that I had a style. It was a
distinct style and it was mine. It was not truly unique—it was a Western
flat-heater style, based on techniques developed by Radnor and Paul, but with a
slightly larger shield than they used. It was identifiable as being similar to
all the right handed Western Knights who used heater shields in the 80s and 90s—Duke
Christian du Glaive, Count Obadiah, Steven
MacEnruig, William of Houghton, etc. I used combination blows, misdirection,
and especially molinee’s (a lot of molinees). In that regard, if it was like
anybody else, it was probably closest to Steven of Beckenham—except that Steve
being student of Wulf Sagaen von Ostense he was a counter puncher and I am not (most
of the people who won crown in the 80s or 90s were Sagan’s students—he occupies
a place in the West and now Artemesia similar to the place occupied by Farrel
von Halstern in the East and that Eichling von Arum once occupied in CAID, the
trainer of kings). The only person who
really fights like me in the East is Duke Ronald, because we were squire
brothers and were greatly influenced by Houghton—but he had altered his style
radically by the time I moved out here. Regardless, I had a style, and my style
was not anybody else’s. It was mine. I had blows and techniques that I had developed
for myself. I did things with my sword that nobody else did. When I moved to
the East I found that my offense could not get past the longer shields used by
the Northern Region fighters and my defense could not cope with an off-side
face shot that came from in front of the head (Thorsen in particular destroyed
me with that). I tried all sorts of things to compensate—different shields,
learning a sword forward style—before finally settling into the A Frame heater
style I use now, and to which I am now committed. (Yes, I should have spent a
year with Ronald learning how he had coped, but even though he was in South
Jersey I didn’t see him much). The A Frame still doesn’t feel like *my* style.
My style is the Bellatrix influenced heater style that I fought for 15 years in
the West and 5 years here in the East, but which I’ve now mostly abandoned.
WORKOUTS
Since last I wrote on Monday night, all I’ve done is fight
and push ups.
TECHNIQUE
At Nutley I just wanted helmet time. I wanted to jump into
the deep end of the pool and trade stripes. I wasn’t working on anything and,
in fact, was specifically trying *not* to have a plan in any of my fights.
FIGHTING
I fought Breeder, Duke Kelson, Tseitchel, Duke Gregor, and a
fighter I did not know. I’d brought my old leather vambraces because since I
started using my splint arms with the 5 piece elbows my neck, back, shoulder,
and elbows have bothered me, and I’m pretty sure it’s the vambraces.
Unfortunately, I pulled the vambraces out and then forgot to put them on, so I
fought without them most of the night. I only realized they were missing after
I fought Gregor. I lost my arm twice, but thankfully nobody hit me on the
elbow.
Beating someone at practice doesn’t matter, but how well you
execute at practice does. It feels good to kill fighters who are good at practice,
but it doesn’t mean a lot. Still, I had more success against the top fighters
than I am used to. I rarely kill Breeder, I killed him twice. I never kill
Kelson, I killed him twice. I rarely kill Gregor, I killed him twice as well.
But the better thing is that kills on all of them were basically unplanned.
They were shots that I threw in combinations or they were reaction shots. I was
fighting from within the void.
Against Breeder, the difference was that I was much more
active. I have morphed my A Frame style into a bit of a boxer style. I am
moving more. I am switching between a right and left leg lead—even against good
lefties. When I killed Breeder the first time it was with a face shot in the
middle of an exchange, in which he clearly thought I would be farther to my
right than I was, but in which I had stepped off line to my left and got in
behind his block. The second time I killed him was just a blind shot I threw to break up his combo that
ended up hitting him.
Kelson beat me handily in our first tow bouts, and I only
beat him because he got tired and sloppy. But I still felt good about both my
kill shots. The first was a straight down the middle head shot that hit him as
he moved off line to his left. The second was a thrust that went straight up
the face of his shield and into his grill. Both of these were reactions to what
he was doing and I was not conscious of a decision to throw them in either
case.
Agaisnt Tseitchel I was getting fancy, but of course the
fancier I get the sloppier I get. I had some good fights with her and won a
bunch of them.
Against Gregor we started with a very long, intense fight
that involved several exchanges and ended with me hitting him in the face as he
was disengaging. I killed him once more, but he killed me three or four times.
Nonetheless, he said later that I was fighting better than normal: he had been
unable to control range with me, and that I had a very tight defense the whole
time.
My shield strap broke in my last fight and I ended up
borrowing Avran’s great sword and using that as a shield. I fought pretty well,
and outlasted my opponent, killing him at least twice. That was mostly for fun,
and while it allowed some offensive work it really was not serious practice.
Another thing I discussed with Gregor is that Farrel taught
him, as Bellatrix taught me, that you should train your offense to the point
that it is automatic so you can use all your focus on your defense. This is
worth thinking about.
There are 29 days until Crown Tournament. The next time I
will be in armor will be this Sunday, most likely at Grant’s Tomb.
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